This is not exactly cipher-related, but since it's (a) on-line; (b) has
a million dollar grand prize and (c) you can enter from anywhere in the
world, I thought some of you might be interested!

http://www.urbanchallenge.com/online

The Urban Challenge is a real game which I've been playing for two years
now. It's a 20-odd city circuit in the United States in Canada, which
travels from city to city most every Saturday from April through
October. Teams of two people solve trivia, solve 12 checkpoint clues,
navigate the city (on foot or by public transit only), and photograph
themselves at checkpoints. The top ten teams from each city game win an
entry to the Nationals in November where they compete for $50,000.

In reality, the team is much more than just two people, because most of
the checkpoint clues are trivia- and research-intensive, and require a
"war room" staffed with expert googlers to solve the clues for the team,
and relay the answers (as well as routing) to the team on the ground.

Although I am really a born support person, and not an athlete (because
foot speed is very important, especially at Nationals, and I enjoy the
mental aspect more), I've found myself playing on the ground the past
two seasons, finishing 6th in San Francisco in 2003, 8th in Saint Louis
in 2004, and 9th in San Francisco in 2004 (with a trip to Nationals in
New Orleans last fall, and another one to Miami coming up this
November). No, my team didn't come close to winning the $50K - we
finished 36th out of about 138 teams last year in the semi-finals at
Nationals. The seven teams who made the finals were all uber-athletes,
including some Olympians, some Ironmen triathletes, and some
Eco-Challengers. The least athletically gifted of them were "mere" 3
hour marathoners!

Well, you could call the on-line challenge The Revenge of the Nerds
because it has NO physical component, and people who have been slaving
away in anonymity while the teams they support go for the grand prize,
can now step forward and take their chances at a million dollars.

If you're interested, it's only $5 to register on-line. The on-line
challenge will take place on April 20th - the top ten teams from that
will earn a berth in the finals in NYC (and they'll fly your team there
from anywhere in the world). An eleventh team will be chosen at
random - you get a point in the lottery for every day you signed up
before the game 4/20/04, so sign up early!

As for the nature of the clues, they're very different...take a look at
www.urbanchallenge.com, especially the clues from the cities that have
been played this season, and you'll see what they're like.

We did have one cipher at Nationals last year, clue #5. Teams who find
the"skip person" during the course of the race can skip a clue - most
skipped this one because they didn't have a clue how to solve it. Yours
truly solved it of course (you can see it on-line, have a go at it -
fairly easy from Cipher Challenge standards).

Alexandra Fiona Dixon
San Francisco